LOS ANGELES – The owners of Alpha Ambulance Inc., a now-defunct Los Angeles-area ambulance transportation company, have been sentenced in connection with a Medicare fraud scheme, officials announced today.
U.S. District Court Judge Audrey B. Collins sentenced Aleksey Muratov, aka Russ Muratov, 32, and Alex Kapri, aka Alex Kapriyelov or Alexander Kapriyelov, 56, to nine years in prison, and six years and three years, respectively.
Both plead guilty on Oct. 28, 2014, to conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
Muratov and Kapri were owners and operators of Alpha, which provided specialized emergency ambulance transportation services to Medicare beneficiaries, primarily dialysis patients.
From at least June 2008 through at least July 2012, officials said Alpha submitted more than $49 million in claims for ambulance transportation.
As a result, Medicare paid Alpha more than $13 million for these claims, many of which were fraudulent including knowingly providing non-emergency ambulance transportation to Medicare beneficiaries whose medical condition at that time did not require ambulance transportation, according to authorities.